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The fear of a interplanetary contamination by back contamination from the Moon was the main reason for quarantine procedures adopted for the early Apollo program.
It is widely claimed that a common type of bacterium, Streptococcus mitis, accidentally contaminated the Surveyor's camera prior to launch, and that the bacteria survived dormant in the harsh lunar environment for two and one-half years, supposedly then to be detected when Apollo 12 brought the Surveyor's camera back to the Earth.